Baseline Romance Grading System

Is the story a love story, a relationship story?

What makes it any different than general fiction? Nothing, except that, in a romance, the relationship is paramount. 

Does it have a happy ending? Editorially speaking -- and it goes for every reader as well -- reading stories and liking them, including Romantic Speculative Fiction stories, is ultimately subjective. I like romance because the stories uphold things I believe in strongly - people's dreams and values overcoming circumstances and obstacles, and that love matters, people matter.

Romance novels, more than any other genre, affirm love conquering all odds.

Characters are the main focus; the relationship paramount to the plot.

Unlike a mainstream novel, a romance must develop the central love story. The central love story will always be foremost in the reader's mind.

The protagonists must display worthy characteristics such as loyalty, bravery, and honesty. It is essential for readers to care for a hero and heroine and root for them to reach their goals.

As soon as the reader meets your hero and heroine, the reader knows they will end up living happily ever after. Your job is to make them worry that this time the outcome could be different.

Certain subjects are not effective in a romance. The reader wants escape, not confrontation with reality.

A romance novel is the exploration of how two people who have the potential to love, find each other, and conquer whatever problems stand between them.

It focuses on an intense period within a long-term relationship, usually courtship. It's intensely focused on the relationship, not the history, the cause, the crime etc. which forms the context.

Romance characters go beyond the ordinary to achieve an extraordinary love, but the journey to happiness isn't easy, and depends upon the actions they take throughout the book. Heroes and heroines earn their happiness.

Both take some growing and self-examination to reach their ultimate destination - and it is that journey romance writers write.

Everything that happens in a romance relates to this couple, has some impact on this couple. This "convention" allows for infinite variety. The convention from which the romance does not vary even remotely, is the happy ending!

Derived from: 

http://www.likesbooks.com/romance.html

Opinions of authors such as:  Debra Dier, Jo-Ann Power, Julie Garwood, Jo Beverley, Stella Cameron, Judith O'Brien.